


Balancing Act

by renecdote



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dealing with a bad call, Eddie Diaz Needs a Hug (9-1-1 TV), Established Relationship, Evan "Buck" Buckley Needs A Hug, Hurt/Comfort, Lots of hugs needed okay, M/M, Some Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:29:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28580538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: They’re sitting on the cold concrete roof of the firehouse, hidden behind the air conditioning unit, in a place where nobody will find them unless they’re looking. And after the call they had, after the look Buck shot Bobby before he followed Eddie up here... nobody is going to come looking. Not yet. Not for a while. And if they’re lucky, the alarm won’t go off either.“I’m fine,” Eddie says, stubbornly stoic. “I don’t want to talk about it.”Buck just wants to look after Eddie after a bad call. He ends up looking after himself as well.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 236





	Balancing Act

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a warm up prompt by missriverwitch on tumblr.
> 
> There are references to what happens in 1x02, but this is set at some point post season 3 where the boys are in a relationship.

Buck is a hypocrite. He knows he’s a hypocrite. For a lot of reasons, probably, but today it’s for the way he tells Eddie, “It’s okay to be struggling, you know. It’s okay to ask for help.”

(As if he hasn’t been struggling on and off for months—years—now without telling anyone.)

They’re sitting on the cold concrete roof of the firehouse, hidden behind the air conditioning unit, in a place where nobody will find them unless they’re looking. And after the call they had, after the look Buck shot Bobby before he followed Eddie up here... nobody is going to come looking. Not yet. Not for a while. And if they’re lucky, the alarm won’t go off either.

“I’m fine,” Eddie says, stubbornly stoic. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

There is a bite to his voice that is rarely there; a brittle frustration that should make Buck back away. That’s probably what Eddie is trying to do—push him away because it’s easier, simpler, less painful than uncovering the wound and letting someone in—but Buck stays still, firm, pressed shoulder to shoulder, arm to arm. He’s a fucking hypocrite, because three days ago he was feeling much like Eddie is now and he cancelled their dinner date, lied and said he had a bad headache so he didn’t want to go out. He didn’t stand firm then, didn’t seek out his partner’s comfort; he turned away and hid and struggled alone.

So Buck gets it. It’s easier, being alone. You don’t have to pretend you’re alright when you’re alone. And he knows that’s what Eddie is doing. His uniform is streaked with dirt, smudges of it on his face as well, but Buck watches him breathe deeply, watches him dig his nails into his palms and straighten his shoulders. He was curled forward when Buck got up here and Buck has watched him pull his armour back on piece by dented piece.

He thought maybe he was someone Eddie didn’t have to pretend in front of.

He guesses he was wrong.

Eddie tips his head back, staring up at the polluted sky. The moon, a hazy gibbous, keeps appearing and disappearing behind wispy grey clouds. Every part of his posture, every atom in body, screams _leave me alone._

“Did I ever tell you about Devon?”

The words slip out almost unbidden, but they’re out there now, and Buck likes to think he never starts something he isn’t willing to finish. So he takes his own breath, digs his own nails into his palms, peels back some of his own dented armour.

“He was the first person I lost. The first person I—“ _failed_. He swallows. Four years and he’s still not over it; he doubts he ever will be. “I couldn’t save him. And everyone told me it wasn’t my fault, you know? That there was nothing I could have done. But—he was _right there_. I _had him_ , he just needed to reach a little further, and...”

Eddie is looking at him now, out of the corner of his eye. His voice is quiet when it reaches across the chasm of silence Buck’s words trailed off into. “He fell?”

“He let go.”

It’s surprisingly easy to say, for how hard Buck is still taking it.

“It wasn’t your fault, Buck,” Eddie tells him.

Buck takes another deep breath, steadying himself, because this isn’t about him, this isn’t about getting Eddie’s reassurance. It’s about saying, “Today wasn’t your fault either.”

Eddie shakes his head. “I know.” And he sounds like he does; bitter though it is. “I just...”

_Sometimes we do everything right and it’s still not enough._

The words pop into Buck’s head. Hen said them to him once. It wasn’t the comfort it was intended to be then, and it’s not really a comfort now. But it’s an important reminder, one he clings to with bleeding nails some nights, drowning in the guilt and second-hand pain of a bad call.

“It still hurts,” he finishes for Eddie, just as quiet as Eddie was finishing his own sentence.

Eddie nods. His focus drifts back to the stars, like they’re magnetic and he is a compass on a ship, adrift, constantly searching for their North. “I think that’s a good thing. I think it means we’re still human, that we still care enough to feel the pain of the people we help, even though it would be easier to shut off our emotions, block the world out.”

Buck isn’t sure he could do that if he wanted to. He tried, once, when he thought he could be a Navy SEAL. But he wasn’t very good at it then and he doesn’t think he’d very good at it now.

He doesn’t think he’d want to, anyway. For all the bad, there is even more good. There are Sunday morning pancakes, family dinners at the station, Christopher’s sweet smile, Eddie’s touches and kisses and the look he gets on his face when he thinks Buck isn’t looking. For all the pain and the anguish and the bad in the world, there is love.

So, “It’s not always bad.”

A lot of the time, it’s pretty damn good.

“No.” The word is slow, a little thoughtful, and when Buck glances over he finds Eddie’s eyes already on him. “It definitely isn’t always bad.”

It didn’t feel right to take Eddie’s hand before, but it does now. Buck tangles their fingers together, resting them against his leg. It is Eddie who lifts their arms and presses a gentle kiss to the back of Buck’s hand.

“I love you,” he murmurs, and it contains all the gratitude he can’t say out loud.

Buck’s smile crinkles his eyes even though his lips don’t turn up. “I love you too.”

His phone buzzes and Buck checks it to find a message from Hen. **Dinner ready in 5 mins. You’ve got about 10 more before Cap sends someone up to fetch you both.** He keeps hold of Eddie’s hand, using only one to send back a thumbs up and a heart as thanks for the heads up.

“It’s okay,” Eddie says, face tipped close to read the screen. “I’m okay. We can go down now.”

Buck turns off the phone and slips it back into his pocket. He tips his head back to the sky. He wonders if it’s true, what people say about people looking down at you after they die. He never believed it much as a kid, but he likes the Romanticism of it. He likes to think that there is more than just death; that even if it doesn’t mean something big and important, it doesn’t just… end. Not when there could be so much more.

“We’ve got time,” he says. “I want to sit a bit longer.”

He can pretend it’s for Eddie’s benefit, but it’s for his own as well. They had a bad call, but this—this could be a good moment. Or at least one that isn’t all bad.

Eddie shifts, pulling apart their hands so he wrap his arm around Buck’s shoulder instead. Buck lets him; Eddie has always been the hold, rather than be held, type when he needs comfort. And Buck would be lying if he said he didn’t like to be held. Together, like this, the give and take is equal. Balanced.

Up above, the clouds part again and the moon peeks out, steady and bright. Seventy-three million tons of rock floating in a vacuum, but from here it looks beautiful. The world really is amazing. And even when it’s hard, Buck knows that it’s worth it—for a lot of reasons, but especially for moments like this. Always, for moments like this.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments are love 💛 You can also find me on tumblr [here](https://renecdote.tumblr.com/).


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